My view of Zen as an institution, some of its problems, and how it operates is most completely expressed in my paper, "Means of Authorization: Establishing Hierarchy in Zen Buddhism in America", delivered as part of a panel on Chan at the American Academy of Religion Conference in Boston in 1999. That's what we made of it." Soto temples in Japan often are a family business, handed down from father to son, as Suzuki himself had done with his son Hoitsu. The latter choice was too painful for many for any number of reasons, including: 1) many believed that the Center was the best place to practice Zen and so leaving meant giving up what made life seem most meaningful, 2) their self-identities as Zen practitioners were connected to the Center, 3) loyalty to Suzuki Roshi, 4) leaving close friendships established through communal living and especially through practicing meditation together, 5) loving the lifestyle and 6) fear of losing one's position in the hierarchy and the possibility for future higher positions culminating in being Dharma transmitted oneself. Stay connected. All of this discontent emerged when it was made public that Baker had allegedly been having an affair with the wife of an influential sangha member. This scheme was later institutionalized through the ritual of Dharma transmission. [15], In the twenty-five years since leaving San Francisco Zen Center, Baker has continued his career as a Zen teacher, founding and developing two practice centers. A special note is given to the papers of Heine, Wright, Foulk, McRae, Welter, Schlutter, Michel Mohr and Ishii Shudo. In particular, Suzuki's San Francisco Zen Center lineage continues through his bureaucratic "transmission" to his son Hoitsu. Not only the work of Zen writers, but political analysts, social critics, sociologists, and my involvement with the practice have informed my thinking about the state of contemporary Zen in the West. It was not mentioned in the interviews that Suzuki himself might be partially responsible for the ensuing trouble. Downing adds, "Suzuki reminded Richard [Baker] that Hoitsu had a family and two children. Its raison d'etre is to produce people who possess a fundamental insight into life, people who are not fooled by appearances or ideas. But in the 1960s and 70s, American Buddhists needed the foreigners. Below is the information about san francisco zen center scandal . Anybody who traveled to Japan, as many American Buddhists would, quickly learned that every monastery there had its own variations on the traditionas with any other religious practice, there is no one true form. "It is, basically, a description of a number of monastic procedures implicitly attributed to Pai-chang, set in a quasi-historical context, and presented with the authors own explanation and laudatory remarks. Yet Baker certainly knew that, at best, few if any roshi are so fully realized. A senior member relates in Downing's book that Suzuki himself refused to hear criticism of Baker by other members of the Center because, as he said, " To his [Suzuki's] way of thinking, Dick's commitment was at another level, so the rest of us were not in a position to criticize him." The meeting, which Zournas had hoped would mark the end of Shimanos tenure, turned out to be another show of support. [9] The building, designed by Julia Morgan, was built as the Emanu-el Residence Club in 1922 for the Emanu-el Sisterhood. Even when Dharma transmission does reflect some level of something we may call spiritual attainment, it is not based on the idealized version proffered by the Zen institution: a mystical meeting of minds between teacher and disciple sharing a timeless truth that unvaryingly matches the minds of all teachers going back in the lineage, through the six Chan Patriarchs in China, and the twenty eight generations of the supposed Indian lineage going back to the historical Buddha, and beyond. San Francisco Zen Center's purpose is to make the teachings and practice of Soto Zen Buddhism widely available, to train teachers, and to help cultivate mindfulness and compassion in the world. [2] However, San Francisco Zen Center's website now comments: "Although the circumstances leading to his resignation as abbot in 1984 were difficult and complex, in recent years, there has been increased contact; a renewal of friendship and dharma relations. In particular, Berger, Peter,L. It is clear that the senior members of Zen Center surrounding Baker were well-indoctrinated vessels of Zen ideology. In fact, Suzuki's lineage, now and as long as the line survives, comes through his son Hoitsu and Baker and that unknown person. Some of these students began calling their group City Center, and they incorporated in 1962 as the San Francisco Zen Center.[1][2][3][4][5]. The leadership of San Francisco Zen Center required Anderson to take a leave of absence from his position as abbot. Ask Kelly S about San Francisco Zen Center. And the teachings in it. Finally, as Suzuki apologized to Baker for what he was going to do to him, i.e., give him and only him Dharma transmission, Suzuki knew that all was not right or ripe or both with Baker. Although Baker claimed that his relationship was a love-affair which had not yet been consummated, the outcry surrounding the incident led to accusations of impropriety, including the admissions by several female members of the community that they had had affairs with Baker before or during his tenure as abbot. Foulk, T. Griffith, "The Zen Institute in Modern Japan", pp.157-177. Yet, after Tatsugami Roshi, one of the important training teachers from Eiheji, one of the two main Soto Zen training monasteries in Japan, conducted only one training period at Tassajara, Zen Center's monastery in California, Suzuki "arranged" for him not to return because his American students were so dissatisfied. Founded in 1972 by the San Francisco Zen Center and Zentatsu Richard Baker, the site is located on 115 acres (0.47 km 2) in a valley seventeen miles (27 km) north of San Francisco [1] and offers a variety of workshops and classes throughout the year. The fact is that almost everything about Zen's presentation, practice, and rituals is aimed at producing people who give up their good sense with the promise of a greater gain in the future. "The years people spent here were not wasted years of being duped. An interesting debate between Victoria and members of the Deshimaru group (A.Z.I.) Visitors can enjoy the springs, go swimming or on hiking trips, and have the opportunity to arrange for practice with the community living at the monastery for a few days. The Zen Master in America: Dressing the Donkey with Bells and Scarves, Holding the Lotus to the Rock: reflections on the future of the Zen sangha in the West by James Ishmael Ford Suzuki's arrival came at the tail end of the Beat movement and just prior to the social movements of the 1960s, both of which had major roots in San Francisco. Mark Oppenheimer hosts the podcast Unorthodox for Tablet magazine and writes for The New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, and GQ, among other publications. The Zen Studies Society was marked by frequent turnover. Ruling year info. The supposed enlightened Master gets the last word in judging not only the student's behavior and verbal responses, but also the whole of the past enlightened lineage including the historical Buddha by commenting on and judging any and all of the past Masters in the old cases (koan) and in their recorded sayings. In 1987 SFZC started the Zen Hospice Project, a volunteer hospice program run out of a guest house on Page Street with five residential beds. Zen ascribes to Pai-chang (died 814) its earliest monastic code that supposedly set Chan apart as a separate sect in the Tang dynasty. For students of the San Francisco Zen Center, one of America's oldest and most prestigious Buddhist institutions, the world has already ended. Their sins are far worse than what goes on in Zen circles. Zen priest Mel Weitsman served with Anderson as a co-abbot during the remainder of his term, and the tradition of two sitting Abbots continued for the next few decades. Explore San Francisco Zen Center's newsletters and blogs. For an earlier view of the immediate events surrounding Baker, see Butler, Katy, "Events Are The Teachers", The CoEvolution Quarterly, winter 1983, pp.112-123. [20] Zen Hospice Project provides hospice care for individuals of any or no religion who are looking for a compassionate end to their life. It also spun off its business and stopped pretending that work without compensation was "spiritual practice.". People put their hearts into the practice and the Center, sometimes going as far as asserting that the Center represented the cutting edge of Zen in the America. In this act lies the first step towards freedom." The flow of his consciousness is not the fixed repetitive patterns of our usual self-centered consciousness, but rather arises spontaneously and naturally from the actual circumstances of the present. The sangha was incorporated by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and a group of his American students in 1962. Cole, who teaches at Lewis and Clark College, also has two very provocative books soon to be published, one on the Mahayana sutras and the other on early Chan texts and the "birth" of Chinese Buddhas. Foulk doubts that the Chan sect existed as a separate sect with its own monastic institutions during the Tang dynasty. Was he acting primarily with his own self-interest in mind? This is not surprising, being, as it is, a natural result of the customs and environment created by the Zen institution. And perhaps most importantly, his authority will be understood with a taken-for-granted quality of being natural. Greens Restaurant, opened in 1979 in Fort Mason of San Francisco, was another business venture by SFZC under the influence of Baker. The focus itself is on the master. The idea that Zen's emphasis on wisdom while only giving lip service to compassion in reality is then about power is an idea that I have just begun to examine. I approached it with a searching spirituality aspect, reading Huxley and Timothy Leary, and that leads you down the road to the Beat generation and Zen. Baker's friends and supporters say the Zen Center never regained the spark and spiritual power of the Suzuki/Baker years. "[12] And Baker, for his part, is quoted as having said in a 1994 interview with Sugata Schneider: I don't think that the gossipy or official versions of what happened are right, but I feel definitely that if I were back in the situation again as the person I am now, it wouldn't have happened. How bad was Shimanos womanizing? I asked Schnyer. These events are a helpful reminderboth to me and to othersof my vulnerability to arrogance and inflation. Suzuki or any other Zen master only looks this way if we avoid looking at their real life. This was especially true of people wanting to climb Zen Center's ladder to positions of authority, power, and prestige, which was totally dependent on Baker's sanction. Latest News. There appeared to be a vast cultural divide between the Zen Center students of Suzuki and Japanese Zen monks that showed itself both in America and in Japan. After six months, he returned to his position. Ironically, what follows is in many ways a religious text. Suzuki's prestige grew enormously. San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC), is a network of affiliated St Zen practice and retreat centers in the San Francisco Bay area, comprising City Center or Beginner's Mind Temple, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. (If the reader wants to argue that Dharma transmission in the Rinzai sect or in the modern Sanbokyodan sect so popular in the West matches the ideal of Zen rhetoric, please feel free to email me at my address listed in the Notes.) Hence, questioning and dissent became a shortcoming of the person expressing such a view. Sasaki, of Rinzai-ji, a Zen center in Los Angeles, is now 106 years old and, as his board members finally admitted in 2013, was groping and fondling unwilling students well into his 11th decade (he also ran a leading Zen center in New Mexico, and his lewdness did not respect state lines). Zen Center Members "It was a fantastic drive," he said, it was safe to drive and that he liked to keep his legs in zazen posture. Baker presided over it all like a feudal lord, hosting dinner parties with then-Gov. And he was also just a guy, kind of like Bill Clinton was just a guy. Zen practice is not required to stay at Green Gulch, though guests are welcome to participate in zazen or any other activities. And that very presentation is the freight of the Zen machine. And what was Suzuki's intention here? Obedience, subservience, and discipline were well rewarded at a large institution like the San Francisco Zen Center, as Downing's book amply shows. 2002: 8-11. The deeper you go into practice, the deeper you find your teacher's mind is, until you finally realize that your mind and his mind are Buddha's mind. Some Zen followers believe that Zen is only concerned with enlightenment and is not concerned with personal behavior or with ordinary morality. (I don't mean to say that Kapleau is any more or less qualified to teach for receiving transmission or not, and in fact he is one of the few major teachers not involved with sexual or other scandal though one of his disciples did have a major scandal.) [9], Although Baker claimed that his relationship with the woman was a love-affair which had not yet been consummated, the outcry surrounding the incident led to a series of accusations of impropriety on Baker's part, including the admissions by several female members of the community that they had had affairs with Baker before or during his tenure as abbot. I said, I have to come back here. So I did one more semester of school and then dropped out. If Suzuki was California's Zen messiah, then Richard Baker was his Apostle Paul. During his interview with Downing, Baker Roshi explains that having a "nice car," girlfriends and going out to dinner were implementations of Suzuki Roshi's commitment to lay practice. With so many students and so much public attention, some felt Baker became less available to the members of the community. They should take credit for the fact that we did it for many years. Sanbkydan Zen and the Way of the New Religions by Robert H. Sharf Under Baker's leadership, it appears that the Center functioned as a dysfunctional family, denying that anything was wrong or problematic. It is an institutional dream that needs to be analyzed using its own description. As long as it was understood that Baker was the only Dharma heir of Suzuki, it was exceedingly difficult for any one to question Baker's behavior and style. Anderson succeeded him as abbot, and later co-abbot. This relationship between the public and private was easily translated to the needs of the San Francisco Zen Center, with meditation halls and public spaces on the lower levels, and residential areas for practicing students on the upper floors. Institutional mythology, which created a seamless picture of unbroken lineage along with pure, desireless perfection and attainment housed in the body of the master, was not questioned, and hence, remained intact. When it came to Baker's transmission from Suzuki, virtually all the students interviewed by Downing assumed that it was a "real" transmission. To see how the most prominent Japanese Zen roshi as well as some of the roshi associated with bringing Zen to America, in spite of the rhetoric of the standard model of Zen, functioned in Japan from roughly 1911 through WWII, see Victoria, Brian, Zen At War , Weatherhill, 1997. Others have told me that my view, informed by historical scholarship (as opposed to Zen's own fictional history), sociology, political and social analysis as well as long personal involvement, has been helpful in clarifying some of the illusion and in reducing some of the pain. The finances are terrible, and the beautiful carriage house on East 67th Street may have to be sold to pay legal debtsor, if he wins the lawsuit, to pay damages to Eido Shimano, the 82-year-old Zen master who built the society up but also, in a way, has destroyed it. "On both a personal and a professional level, I am still dealing with the consequences of this episode. Covid-Related Openings and Closings Updates page, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility, Conflict, Complaint, and Ethical Review Processes. Richard Baker was 36 years old when he was installed as abbott of the San Francisco Zen Center in 1971. In the West in general, but particularly in America, we place great importance on each person's individuality and uniqueness and hence on our personal experience. Me and my friend always had suspicions he had ongoing relationships with Japanese women that were kept quiet, and were more or less continuous. Americans needed somebody to teach them the rituals. The San Francisco Zen Center community includes residents and non-residents at all three centers, priests and lay practitioners, long-term and short-term participants, and opportunities to attend a wide variety of events and programs. But the Soto sect tries to have it both ways. Although his salary was reportedly modest, he lived a lifestyle which many perceived as extravagant. He occupies an authoritative place in East Asian cultures that have already been imbued with a special level of hierarchy since ancient times. And all of us worshipped him to a certain extent., Nobody was as worshipful as a student named David Schnyer. Zen at War by Brian Daizen A. Victoria: a link to varioius book reviews buy this book now Around 1970, he began sitting regularly with a group in Santa Cruz that went on to form the Santa Cruz Zen Center. Downing quotes a prominent older student who expressed it differently, "Dick tried to take over Zen Center again." His youngest daughter, Omi, committed suicide after spending nine years in a mental hospital; he gave Dharma transmission to his son Hoitsu, who did not study with him or even get on with him, but who inherited his temple (this is standard Soto Zen procedure); he gave, as a favor to a friend, Dharma transmission to someone he did not know or have any contact with. The monastery is closed to outsiders from the months of September through April, then opens to the public by reservation from May through August - offering retreats, seminars, and workshops. It is a sanitized description wherein any one roshi is replaceable by any other roshi, which is really no person at all. Anderson became entangled in an incident in 1987 that reached back to 1983 just after Zentatsu Richard Baker had resigned as abbot. One older student expressed it this way, "In our hands, and it was in our hands, it [Suzuki's pure teaching] became a bludgeon of power, a source of competition, jealousy, and paranoia. For a very fine book review of Shoes Outside the Door, see Crews, Frederick, "Zen & the Art of Success," The New York Review of Books, 28 Mar. Students in their early 30s, even younger, could find themselves among the senior monks at Dai Bosatsu, in a tradition that is supposed to be ungraspable even after a whole lifetime of study. San Francisco Zen Center has begun to offer on-site meditation, Dharma talks, programs, classes, and other events. Brian Victoria was so interested in the possibility of a public pacifist/anti-war Soto monk that he contacted Suzuki's son Hoitsu who told him: "I don't know where all of this antiwar talk comes from, but my father and the rest of the family supported Japan's war effort just like everyone else." Michel Foucault in "The Means of Correct Training" in Discipline and Punish, Trans. He also ran a temple virtually under the control of Japan's repressive fascist era government. What I mean by the "Zen" institution, for the simple purpose of this conversation, is the organized set of structures that support the standard model of Zen. The historical fact is that monasteries actively courted the state and elite elements of society, depended on donations from wealthy patrons and or the state, had tenant farmers work their often vast donated and inherited land holdings, etc. There is a whole lineage built on the idea that Kapleau had transmission. For some thirty years a significant group of scholars have been investigating the development of the Chan sect in Chinese Buddhism. Also see, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, Trans.and Ed. By the seventies he calculates 10-15,000 hours and that by 1987 the most senior practitioners had each meditated some 20- 25,000 hours on the cushion. They have a daughter, Sofia Baker, born on March 1, 2001, in Alamosa, Colorado. For a peek into a period only shortly before our own, we can use Brian Victoria's book Zen At War. The volunteer project's founding director was Frank Ostaseski, who served until 2004. In the early 1990s the Board of Directors at the Zen Center created the "Ethical Principles and Procedures for Grievance and Reconciliation" for its members, for conflict resolution mediation guided by Buddhist precepts. His whole being testifies to what it means to live in the reality of the present. Perhaps tellingly, Baker made this claim at the height of the Vietnam War, when virtually 100% of Zen followers were opposed to the war and hence having an anti-war/anti -government roshi in his lineage was good currency. In this scheme, each teacher can trace his lineage and hence, authenticity, back to the historical Buddha. In the last few decades as opposed to the past, we have had a clear personal view of the actual people involved, Richard Baker being only one. This 1987 incident has had a damaging impact on Anderson's reputation as a teacher, since his arrest received national media coverage. Asia is filled with monks and priests who know how to sit, chant, eat, bow, walk, dress, and live as a Buddhist. Hence, roughly 95% of all Soto priests in Japan have Dharma transmission, most receiving it after spending at most three years in a monastery, some with as little as six months. He served as Abbot there until 1978, moving the group to Jikoji in Los Gatos, California in 1979. Many women and others in the Zen community have suffered as a result, and we regret and apologize for our collective failure to stop this harm. Understandably, Suzuki may not have been able to read across the Japanese-American cultural divide and therefore not see the character flaws of Baker that were obvious to some of his unenlightened American students. It was also mentioned that Suzuki believed that Dharma transmission must be "real", implying that there is "not real" Dharma transmission. For example there was the claim that Zen monasteries in China were self- sufficient, which makes it seem that they were not dependent on the state and elite elements of society and were not actively promoting themselves to get this support and patronage. Jerry Brown, poet Gary Snyder, Esalen founder Michael Murphy, author Ken Kesey and other leading lights of the Zen intelligentsia on the West Coast. defending Deshimaru's teacher Sawaki roshi's wartime involvement dating from 1905 through WWII is available on the internet at, http://www.zen-azi.org/html/guerre_e.html#replybyb. Rather than report this to the police, Anderson returned to the body over several days to meditate over the corpse. Baker also claimed that he was trying "to protect Suzuki Roshi's legacy and lineage." Unlike his predecessors, Suzuki was a fluent speaker of English who actually wanted to come to the United States. Zen priest Mel Weitsman served with Anderson as a co-abbot during the remainder of his term, and the tradition of two sitting Abbots continued for the next few decades. It may be Zen-like, but it can also be annoying. One of the most interesting aspects of the Baker case is that the people at the SFZC did not change their fundamental understanding of the process they had gone through for, in some cases, twenty or more years. Until one begins to view religious institutions as institutions that function in a particular context, subject to the same problematic power relationships as secular institutions, problems such as those that arose at the San Francisco Zen Center and Buddhist organizations across the West will be almost inevitable. The senior members blindly and unquestioningly bought into Zen's mythology and Baker's transmission being above and beyond question. I finally asked Schnyer if he had said what Zournas attributed to him: He hasnt raped anyone yet, has he? Zen Mind? It is clear from Downing's interviews that Zen Center members assumed that there was no ideology to be questioned, i.e., the unreliable history of Zen, the hagiographic picture of the lineage, along with its mythology of Dharma transmission, unbroken lineage, and enlightened Zen masters. It is noted that after 1983 the study of sutras, Zen texts and history was instituted. This "history" has added weight because it is presented as biographical fact. Some of the most senior members appeared afraid to raise difficult questions with Baker perhaps for fear of losing their own privileged positions. The Examiner reports that Preston has wants to use the mostly vacant 555 Fulton as . [2], In the late-1980s Baker also gave shiho to Issan Dorsey, whom he had ordained as a priest in 1975. The idea of electing an abbot is, no doubt, a distinctively American innovation in a centuries-long pattern of religious authority. A full overview of what is open can be found here. It is mentioned often enough that Downing, interestingly calculates the hours that individual senior members had meditated. Whose Zen? He remained abbot there until 1984, the year he resigned his position after it was disclosed in the previous year that he and the wife of one of SFZC's benefactors had been having an ongoing affair. "[33], In the 1980s Baker ordained Issan Dorsey as a priest. Tassajara Bakery was a Zen Center venture promoted by Richard Baker as an extension of the baking practices at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. I think that really helped to put everybody on their best behavior. A descendant of Thomas Dudley,[4] Baker was raised in a family of moderate wealth. One member quoted Baker as saying, "I always act from pure motives; I never worry about the world." With one or two exceptions, the only views expressed of Baker's errant behavior among the Center's members was in the context of their personal experience. 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